


Heart of Oak

by jolly_utter



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Age of Sail, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Chichester Cottage, Excessive ship metaphors, Flying Colours Fix-it, M/M, Non-Canonical Discussion of Emotions, Non-Graphic Description of Injuries, Period Typical Ableism, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 21:17:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20142127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolly_utter/pseuds/jolly_utter
Summary: Chichester, 1837. Rear-Admiral Horatio Hornblower sat at his desk on a cold winter night, engrossed in the production of his memoirs... It amused him to think that they might be discovered in a hundred years or so and published then: surely as a work of fiction, for his exploits, when set down on paper, sounded far too extraordinary to be credible.





	Heart of Oak

**Author's Note:**

> In which I tried to fix Flying Colours with a slightly goofy premise, and it turned into a lot of feelings and sex. Oops. My first contribution to Hornblower fandom in over a decade, as a recent relapse into Age of Sail obsession has led to my re-reading all of the books. 
> 
> Many thanks to my lovely beta readers, who "kindly stopped for me" - you know who you are. Any remaining errors are entirely mine. 
> 
> All text in italics is taken directly from Flying Colours. With (some) apologies to C. S. Forester, here goes...

1837\. Chichester.

Rear-Admiral Horatio Hornblower sat at his desk on a cold winter night, engrossed in the production of his memoirs. This was certainly not a document he intended for immediate publication- there was far too much truth in it for that- but neither was it a wholly factual account of his life and career; that would be foolhardy rather than brave. It amused him to think that it might be discovered in a hundred years or so and published then: surely as a work of fiction, for his exploits, when set down on paper, sounded far too extraordinary to be credible. With this thought in mind, he had slipped in some distractions from the truth of his private life which he most strenuously wished to conceal. For instance, he had greatly overstressed his brief infatuation with Lady Barbara Wellesley, now a dear friend who would be vastly entertained to think of herself as the love of his life. As for his faithful second in command, William Bush, Hornblower included only those details which were in perfect accordance with the behaviour acceptable between brother officers; such innocent signs of affection as holding hands or sleeping side by side or spending most of their adult lives together could hardly be misinterpreted. 

He had reached the point in his account, after the loss of the _Sutherland_, which stirred up many painful as well as tender memories. He had to glance up to reassure himself with the sight of Bush, seated in an armchair by the fire, hale and hearty as ever though grey haired, and the stern lines even more deeply marked in his face as he dozed. There was the wooden leg, familiar now, and the long scar across his brow from the explosion at Caudebec which had nearly killed him. Hornblower knew that many more scars lay concealed from view, testament to a lifetime of war. Bush’s pipe had gone out in his hand, and their cat Lydia was curled on his lap, fast asleep apart from a twitch of her ear when a log snapped in the fireplace. Hornblower smiled at the cosy scene, and cast his mind back to those restless days in hiding, when he thought he might run mad with impatience and Bush was still healing from the loss of his foot.

\---------------------------------

_Only self-control and patience were necessary, he told himself, to come safely through these last few weeks of waiting, but his patience seemed to be coming to an end, and he was so weary of exerting self-control. It was the flesh that saved him when his spirit grew weak._

Hornblower had been up the tower room again, tormenting himself once more with views of the freedom denied to him, and stomped down the stairs in a black temper. As he reached the ground floor, however, his attention was attracted by Bush calling his name, and he stepped into the latter’s bedchamber. 

“Look, sir!”

After God only knew how many weary hours of practice with his leg, Bush was standing in the centre of the room unaided, beaming. Hornblower’s bad mood evaporated at the sight, and he unconsciously held out both hands as one would to a child. Bush made the few steps to meet him, unsteady but independent, and grasped Hornblower’s hands in his own. His good humour was infectious, his newly discovered freedom a breath of the fresh air that both had so long been denied. Hornblower felt himself grin, losing his reserve for a moment in the rush of gratitude for Bush’s strong hands and iron-willed determination and the fact that he was once again standing there face to face with him.

“My congratulations, Bush!” The words were scarcely sufficient. “A hard won victory indeed.”

“That it is, sir.” Bush was still holding his hands, and his glowing eyes held all the affection that Hornblower usually tried to blind himself to. Today, he felt caught in it as in a current.

“William.” He drew closer and bowed his head so their brows nearly touched, uncertain if Bush would welcome such an olive branch after the years that Hornblower had held himself apart, aloof in a captain’s formality. He knew he had no right to expect anything more of Bush, already an unimpeachably excellent first officer. Bush’s eyes flicked up to his, the question in them casting a cloud over his honest pleasure, and Hornblower cursed himself for a fool, unable to enjoy a moment of happiness without spoiling it. 

And then Bush, with his damned infinite patience as if they had served together on the _Hotspur_ but yesterday, closed the distance between them, meeting his lips with a familiar kiss that threatened to lift Hornblower’s burden of guilt and responsibility onto Bush’s broad shoulders. Hornblower struggled to allow this comfort, even as he gripped Bush’s hands like a drowning man. Bush moved closer unthinkingly, then unbalanced; his weight bore them both a staggering step or two against the closed door and Hornblower’s arms went around him for support. Hornblower tried to catch his breath at the sudden impact, found his reserve lost too, and eagerly sought Bush’s mouth even as they both regained their footing. Bush met him with his whole body pressed against Hornblower’s as their kisses deepened to a wet slide of lips and tongues. Hornblower felt deliciously dizzy, and yet held steady by Bush’s firm weight and confident mouth. Too soon, Bush drew back, his arm braced on the door and his face pale, and Hornblower realised with another stab of self-recrimination how long he had kept him standing. 

“Bed,” he said firmly, pushing the bolt on the door and keeping his arm around Bush as they moved across the room. At least, he thought grimly, desire provided another excuse for the horizontal surface and physical contact; Bush need not feel fussed over as an invalid, though the set to his jaw revealed the frustration at his own infirmity which Hornblower had watched him battle for many weeks past. Distraction, then, could be Hornblower’s justification, though he mocked his own duplicity even as he told himself that this was for Bush’s sake: Bush would never truly be so weak as to need Hornblower’s touch to reassure him. And yet, if there was any small comfort Hornblower could give to right the imbalance of what Bush had sacrificed for him- that must suffice as reason.

Bush sat heavily on the edge of the bed and Hornblower knelt before him, kissing away the protest that rose to Bush’s lips at this indignity. He ran his hands along Bush’s thighs, digging his thumbs lightly into the muscle and enjoying Bush’s moan. Hornblower hesitated, then dropped his hands lower, feeling smooth wood against one palm and sturdy calf against the other. The caress felt unnatural, but this was Bush now, and he must learn every inch of him, honour every mark of his bravery the same way he had traced ugly barely-healed scars in the heat of Kingston, all those years ago. 

“Sir—" Bush sounded strained, and Hornblower, looking up, was shocked to see that his face bore the expression it had worn when he drew the ligature from Bush’s stump, long weeks before: not so much pain, as the expectation of pain. Bush, who knew no fear of danger, knew that the gentlest action on Hornblower’s part could undo him. Hornblower thought to himself that he could end this even now. He could turn his back, leave the room, and they would never speak of it again. Perhaps that would be easier on both of them than trying to bridge the years of distance and loss that lay between them: Bush’s leg, the _Sutherland_, Hornblower’s children in their tiny grave, all individual sorrows that would become overwhelming if spoken of. Loyal, undemanding Bush had left the choice in his hands, like a bloodied fine black thread, and at the recollection Hornblower resolved that he would not turn aside from squeamishness; he would allow the gentle pull to unspool the tension in his breast, and they could both benefit from the wound being drained.

Hornblower reached for Bush’s face with both his hands, and put all his uncompromising tenderness into the kiss, pressing with lips and tongue until Bush let himself reach out for Hornblower in return, and Hornblower groaned his approval at feeling calloused fingers brushing his face and fisting in his shirt. When he finally drew back, panting, he was sufficiently unguarded that the first words to his mind crossed his lips unchecked:

“I don’t deserve you.” 

Bush looked genuinely appalled at the thought, and Hornblower had to kiss him again, laughter bubbling up at the absurdity of Bush’s feelings for him, and his infinite gratitude for them. Coherent thought was quickly retreating against the onslaught of sensation too long denied. Bush’s hard kisses and hands in his hair, the slight rasp of stubble against his cheek, solid shoulders and chest under his hands and suddenly there wasn’t enough contact, not nearly enough. An awkward, fumbling pause ensued of moving up on the bed, divesting clothing on the way, unbuckling Bush’s leg and dropping it to the floor. 

Hornblower tried not to feel self-conscious, crouching half-clad between his Lieutenant’s legs, desperate with want and uncertainty and not at all in command of himself. He had to take action. Mindful of how sensitive the stump of leg still was, he softly pressed his lips as close to the end as he dared, feeling Bush clutch for his outstretched hand. The skin was mottled purple and yellow from carrying the weight of Bush’s body, and the scars where the flesh had been joined around the sawn-off bone still stood out red and angry. Hornblower forced himself to look upon it, to face the sight of his worst fear visited on his dearest friend, and the revulsion rose in his throat alongside a hard lump of grief. He fought it down, forced himself to focus on what would bring Bush pleasure and relief; if Bush had to live with this awful reality then so could he. 

Hornblower took a deep breath, and applied himself to kissing his way up Bush’s leg, open-mouthed and soft, then up the other thigh. Stilling Bush’s squirming hips, distantly aware of the panting breath and soft curses from above his head, he finally devoted his attention to the hard flesh jutting towards him. The sensitive skin under his lips must be the only soft part of Bush, he mused, and even that had a heart of oak. One hand splayed across Bush’s hip, the other wrapped around the base of his cock, he listened to Bush’s body as he would listen to a ship with his hand on the tiller; Bush moaned and shifted and he changed the course of his mouth accordingly. He welcomed the single-minded focus, relying on instinct and memory more than thought and relishing the weight and bulk filling his mouth as he sucked and slid and let his tongue flick and tease. Hornblower sensed the tension in Bush’s body like the tautness of well-trimmed rigging, pushing him as close up to the wind as he could before easing off, only to do the same again on the other tack. Soon Bush was clenching a hand in Hornblower’s hair, the other fist pressed against his own mouth to muffle his cry as he spilled into Hornblower’s mouth.

The pleasure of attending to Bush was so great that Hornblower only noticed the urgency of his own arousal when he leaned back to survey the satisfied body sprawled beneath him. Bush’s beatific smile dropped from Hornblower’s face and shifted into something more of a smirk. Hornblower glanced down, saw his own prick, swollen and red and aching, and wondered how much he could ask- this was meant to be for Bush’s benefit, after all. A smile still wrinkling the corners of his eyes, Bush reached for something on the small table beside the bed. He pushed a jar into Hornblower’s hands- the oil which helped ease his stump into the wooden leg. It would do. Hornblower’s breath left him abruptly at the unspoken invitation, as if he had been thrown against the door again. He wanted Bush more than he could rightly put into words. 

“Can you kneel?” Hornblower asked, brusque in his urgency. 

Bush gingerly eased himself onto hands and knees and nodded; the weight was off his wound. Hornblower wasted no time in preparing him and pushing inside, biting back a groan at the sudden hot pressure. It was perfect, the oil easing the press of his cock into Bush as he dropped his forehead to Bush’s shoulder, needing as much contact as possible. He moved as slowly as he could at first, until Bush’s impatient growl and his own need spurred him on and he drew himself upright, gripping Bush’s hips. Bush pushed back to meet him, shifting his weight down to his forearms, the muscles in his back standing out as they found a rhythm together. The small bed creaked in time to the soft slap of flesh against flesh and their ragged breathing, but Hornblower scarcely noticed. The frustration that had been itching under his skin for weeks melted away with every thrust, and he ran a hand over Bush’s strong back and chest and legs, admiring and wanting and overwhelmed with sensation. Hornblower felt his hips start to jerk of their own accord as he sought completion and he grasped at Bush’s anchoring bulk as he spent himself, vision almost going dark with the climax.

Afterwards he lay down not quite touching Bush, loathe to impose on him further, but to Hornblower’s shamefully intense relief, Bush rolled over and wrapped his arms around him, absorbing the tremors coursing through Hornblower’s body. In the clarity that followed madness, Hornblower noticed odd details: sweat glistening amid the dark hair on Bush’s chest, the smell of sawdust in his hair from the work on the boat, the light rasp of new callouses as Bush’s thumb rubbed over his skin. He lay so close he could feel the marked rise and fall as Bush took a deep breath before speaking.

“I know I’m precious little use to you now, sir, but I’m glad—I’m glad to be of service in some way.”

From another man the words might have come out bitter, but from Bush, they were honest, and that twisted Hornblower’s conscience even more than anger would have. It was hard to shake off the pleasant languor that had overtaken his limbs, but Hornblower’s perverse brain rebelled against comfort. He knew he had taken a great liberty in resuming what he had considered a youthful folly; he had presumed upon Bush’s loyal affection, something he had tried to consign to the list of human weaknesses he was not permitted, along with the illicit pleasures they had once shared. Only now, more from his actions than from his words, Hornblower saw that Bush might also have craved this closeness- perhaps it was not mere convenience for him. Bush must also have been feeling the weight of their forced confinement, more so due to his injury, and Hornblower had been too wrapped up in his own misery to think of anyone else. Perhaps the true cowardice was not succumbing to desire, as Hornblower had thought, but rather it was closing himself off from the appalling vulnerability of loving and being loved. The thought gave him more terror than did the weakness of his flesh, and so he ought to face it head-on.

“Bush—William.” He struggled upright to lean on an elbow, feeling the need to look the man in the face as he sought for the right words, finding them spilling out when once he began. “I couldn’t get through this mess without you by my side. I mean it. Your knowledge and skill, yes. I need my First Lieutenant, and that you still are, until further orders. But you are also the most steadfast friend I have- have ever had- and I have not permitted you to fulfill that role as I ought. I owe you an apology. I would not be the man or the captain that I am without you by my side, and I have taken you for granted for far too long. You understand?” In his sudden intensity Hornblower grasped Bush’s hand, needing him to see that his worth was not in the least compromised by a missing limb, his service not confined to what use Hornblower could make of his body, none of that. Bush smiled, warm but inscrutable somehow, and returned Hornblower’s strong grasp.

“Horatio. You don’t owe me anything. I couldn’t ask for a better Captain and I am here for whatever you require of me.” He paused, then went on in a softer tone than his usual, “I don’t think you’ll ever understand that I love you just as you are.”

Hornblower, indeed, could not understand, could not find the words to answer. But he could not avoid the obvious: his body was relaxed and his mind was clear as they had not been since his being taken prisoner, and Bush was smiling as he had not since then, and these things must be for the good. Hornblower still could not but count his need for contact and affection as weakness. And yet Bush was the strongest man he knew and he was drawing Hornblower down to lie beside him again, kissing him slow and deep for all that their passions were already sated.

\------------------------

Bush blinked his eyes open and smiled as he noticed Hornblower’s pensive gaze on him.

“How goes the writing?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid. I was just thinking on all that I cannot include, but the story seems to be missing something without it.”

Bush slowly stood, sending a disgruntled Lydia leaping to the floor, and came to look over Hornblower’s shoulder. Hornblower very deliberately did not turn around as he heard Bush fishing in his breast pocket for his glasses; Bush considered them unbecoming to a sailor and his dignity would never survive knowing how endearing Hornblower found them. Peering at the half-finished paragraph on the page, Bush gave Hornblower’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze as he realised what had followed. 

“You need to throw in another love affair, sir.” The honorific still fell easily from his tongue, with the softness of an endearment. Hornblower supposed it might as well be- no one else called him ‘sir’ these days, and certainly not in that tone.

“Another one? I’ve already made sure to mention Maria and Lady Barbara on every other page.”

“How else are you going to explain your rapid improvement in temperament?”

Hornblower harrumphed, but had to concede the point.

“The Count’s daughter in law, of course!” Bush exclaimed. Hornblower nodded and began to write again, then paused after a few sentences, floundering. 

“Hillocks of sweetness,” Bush interjected confidently. Hornblower re-read the words with doubt in his voice.

“…_the breasts which he crushed against him were hillocks of sweetness_?” 

He shrugged. Bush had had far more experience of women than he ever did. And what was the likelihood that this ridiculous document would ever see the light of day, in any case? The two of them knew the truth. Hornblower knew beyond a doubt who had saved him from despair in France, a debt of gratitude that he was still joyfully repaying.


End file.
